It had indeed been a gala day, and he had been given a large, sugared twist to take with him, and it tasted delicious; but somehow or other he began to cry all at once on the way home.
The next day he had full confirmation of how delightful it had been.
While he was going up and down the pavement in his daily occupation of taking care of Silla, he caught fragments of Mrs. Holman's remarks to the housekeeper up stairs, as they stood under the archway; he never for a moment lost sight of her tall figure.
"You may well say so, Miss Damm. Take him into the room with their own children; there aren't many grand folks that would have done such an honour to one like him." ... "We must do so many things in this world, Miss Damm—we must scour the boards over the gutter, so to speak, and put up with them—and I don't mind saying that he showed that he was well cared-for from top to toe." ... "Such an honour! It might have been some respectable child they had asked there. He ought to remember it the whole of his life!" ... "So grand as she is now, she doesn't much care about coming out here and acknowledging the boy. It's nothing for those that can pay to get rid of their shame!"
Nikolai crushed with all his might an old decapitated cock's head, which lay in the gutter, with the heel of his boot, until it was as flat as a penny.
When the terror of bogies and the devil in the coal-cellar had lost its power, one of Mrs. Holman's most powerful means of keeping Nikolai in order was a threat of sending him to the parish school—an institution which stood before her imagination as a publicly authorised house of correction for youth, and a daily training-ground in the fulfilment of one's duty.
He never obtained any very clear idea of what would happen when he went to school; but that it was something quite indeterminably dreadful was evident from the constantly renewed disguised hints, and the repressed, mystical groans and nods by which they were accompanied.
One day the threat was really carried out: he was to go next Monday morning.
Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, he counted on his fingers—he had all those days left. And how he took care of and played with Silla during them, and darted on errands like an arrow!
At last there was only the Sunday afternoon left.